alstry (35.31)

What Is America Preparing For??????

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With the help of Homeland Security grants, police departments nationwide looking to subdue unruly crowds and political protesters are purchasing a high-tech device originally used by the military to repelbattlefield insurgents and Somali pirates with piercing noise capable of damaging hearing.

Police acknowledge that they deployed the so-called Long Range Acoustic Devices (LRADs) as a safeguard at recent political conventions,protest-plagued international summit meetings and this summer's volatile town-hall meetings on health care.

Police should not be using military weapons that are likely to cause permanent hearing loss on demonstrators or anyone else, said Vic Walczak, legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania who objected to the Pittsburgh police's use of the device.

The dish-shaped device generate tones that are higher than the normal human threshold for pain, according to the device's own data sheet. They can be aimed in a narrow beam at specific targets with what the company has described as extreme accuracy.

The American Tinnitus Association said Wednesday that protesters at the G-20 summit were acoustically assaulted with sound of over 140 decibels, which it described as like the kind of sound pressure members of the armed services might face from an Improvised Explosive Device (IED).

The association said that at 130 to 140 decibels, damage to the ear can be instantaneous, adding that the 145 to 151 range of the LRADSis the kind of sound that can cause tinnitus and hearing damage immediately. Tinnitus is a condition that causes ringing in the ears, sometimes permanently.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) has said permanent hearingloss can result from sounds at about 110 to 120 decibels in short bursts or at 75 decibels with long periods of exposure. The National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders said regular exposure of more than one minute of 110 decibels can result in permanent hearing loss.

The concessions, announced Friday, represent about a 12.4 percent pay cut for the 71 fire department workers represented by the International Association of Fire Fighters Local 1934, said chapter president Lonnie Schreiber.

ROCKFORD — Fire Chief Derek Bergsten said it was an emotional day as the Rockford Fire Department laid off four recently recruited firefighters today.

Four more firefighters will work their last days over Friday and Saturday. A total of eight firefighters are among 27 city employees being laid off in all, according to the latest available information.

GEORGE TOWN, Cayman Islands — What happens to a tax haven when it has to raise taxes? The Cayman Islands may soon find out.

Caught in a vise of shrinking revenue and stubbornly high public spending, the Caymans averted a fiscal crisis this week by securing a $60 million overseas loan.

For a tropical paradise that has never taxed income, property, corporate earnings, retail sales or capital gains, such a suggestion borders on heresy.

In June, the full effect of the financial crisis touched shore with the effect of a hurricane. A drop in financial and tourism revenue transformed a projected surplus into a deficit of about $100 million — a huge gap for an annual budget of some $800 million — and the leader of the Cayman government, W. McKeeva Bush, warned of a fiscal crisis.

Mr. Bush is desperately trying to find a way out of his quandary, caught between the demands of local business leaders to keep things the way they are and insistence from London that the economic model of the Cayman Islands must change.

“The U.K. has to be practical,” he said, warning that too bold a new tax program could prompt Cayman-based financial firms to leave. “They don’t want me to go belly up.”

Perhaps not, but there is no getting around the fact that the balmy days for exotic offshore financial centers like the Cayman Islands could be coming to an end.

Steep budget cuts at the Department of Conservation and Recreation will reduce the state’s ability to fight forest fires, fire officials across the state said yesterday.

Over the next week, the agency will issue layoff notices to as many as 55 employees to account for the $11 million in budget cuts required as a result of the state’s fiscal crisis. Those cuts are likely to reduce the staff of the agency’s Bureau of Forest Fire Control by at least half.

“It’s going to be devastating,’’ said Dennis Annear, president of the Massachusetts Forest Fire Council and fire chief for the town of Orange. “This bureau will have a lack of ability to do its job in supporting municipalities in detection, prevention, and suppression.’’

As government keeps cutting, the demand for steel related products like cars will plummet.....in August, steel imports was DOWN 76%!!!!

Now this:

The union that represents 2,500 employees at the Sparrows Point steel mill received a draft proposal from the plant's Russian owners last month detailing a restructuring that could affect as many as 580 jobs, or nearly a third of the workforce, according to the union president.

John Cirri, president of United Steelworkers Local 9477, said in a phone interview Thursday that draft restructuring presented by Russian steel company Severstal detailed a number of ways the jobs could be affected, including reductions, retirements or transfers to other departments. The company is looking to recover from losses due in large part to its American operations, which have suffered because of the weak economy.

The future of the workforce and operations at the Sparrows Point steel mill are in limbo as Severstal works out what to do with its five U.S. plants, which have lost significant business because of the economic downturn and are dragging down the company's earnings.

From one end of town to the other, it's clear the economy has taken a toll on Annapolis' retail landscape.

At the Park Place development on inner West Street, Saucy Shoes, Vizions art gallery and Laura Bevilacqua, an upscale women's clothier, suddenly disappeared.

On Main Street, longtime eye shop Embassy Opticians joined a chain at the new Annapolis Towne Centre this summer. Candles Off Main moved from Main Street to a larger space near the mall and Gallery 1683 closed earlier this month.

Near City Dock, Artini, an accessories shop on Randall Street, closed Friday.

And other business owners said they are struggling to hold on.

"Summer was extremely hard for this end of town," said Quentin Ryan, general manager for the Greystone Grill on Westgate Circle.

Michael Hilton of American Police Force arrived in Hardin with promises of Mercedes police cars and expertise in operating prisons. He delivered the cars last week, but may have learned about prisons following a 1993 conviction for grand theft.

Public records from police and state and federal courts in California show that Michael Anthony Hilton, using that name and more than a dozen aliases over several years, is cited in multiple criminal, civil and bankruptcy cases, and was sentenced in 1993 to two years in state prison in California.

Well, since you asked, I'm preparing for a vacation to Hawaii in 2 weeks, and a second vacation to Nappa in January (I hear the winter months are a great time to go - less crowded - better service etc...).

Would you prefer to let the unruly crowds destroy your neighborhood? Jeez, people, I prefer that the authorities be prepared for all eventualities if it's all the same to you. The fact that there's going to be trouble is a given.

Or are you planning to organize a non-government "police" force? And if you organize it and it is a police force, doesn't that make it by definition a government one - just not the, you know, official government?

Stay sane, Fools.

PS - lquadland10 and mliu01 ... Would you PLEASE explain to me what you ultra-conservative paranoid types have against spelling? This really baffles me. Is it something to do with the "nucular" thing?

Funny how you can always tell the crazy train is pulling out of the station by some variation of the phrase "you'd better wake up." And that's one LONNNNNG train this time!

I don't care what you were labelled before. "Off your friggin' rocker" should cover it henceforth. I mean, for crying out loud ... why don't you pass me some of what you and that ... er ... filmmaker are smoking.